


Frozen

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Bobby POV, M/M, POV First Person, Pre-Slash, all of the angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 20:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>How did we get here, John?</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>No, not John. You stopped being him a long time ago.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>You're Pyro now.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frozen

How did we get here, John?

No, not John. You stopped being him a long time ago.

You're Pyro now.

I should have seen this coming – all of it. If I’d just stopped and _thought_ long enough, I could have realised that you’d go to Magneto; that I would have to fight you. Because I'm X-Men, you're Brotherhood, and it's that simple.

But is anything about us that simple?

Fire and ice. We should've been enemies all along, but we weren't. Now I wonder whether it only happened because you were so determined to do the opposite of what ‘they’ were expecting, but back then, the thought didn’t even occur to me. We were friends. Best friends. Sometimes – you never realised this, I know you didn’t – I even hoped that we might become something more.

But that was then. This is now.

That was John. This is Pyro.

When did it start? After Rogue? Before she arrived, I would've noticed. I used to know everything about you – at least, I thought I did. I used to watch you all the time, even when I wasn't supposed to. I just…couldn’t _not_ look.

Then she showed up, and… I don't know. I don’t know why I left you for her. At first I was just being friendly, but maybe even then I just wanted things to be easier. I never really thought it through.

I know it was around then that you started sneaking off, without saying where you were going or if you'd come back. There were the power displays, bigger than the teachers wanted, and every time they tried to tell you what to do, you just sneered like you were above it all.

And you stopped listening to me.

You started ignoring me.

It hurt. It hurt more than it really should have, and I knew that. That might be why I started to get closer to Rogue, more than before, when really we were just friends: because you were shutting me out and she let me in; because it seemed obvious that you didn't care about me at all.

I didn't understand what was happening though. Not then. I didn't realise until Boston; until you just let go.

It scared me. _You_ scared me.

I can’t believe I’d been such an idiot. Somehow, it took until then, when people could have _died_ , for it to finally occur to me that John Allerdyce was fading away; was being replaced by someone else, completely different to the one I cared for.

I watched you talking to Magneto. I could see you were interested. Partly in his ideas, but also in what it meant for you. Going with him meant no more Professor X holding you back.

Did it ever cross your mind what else you'd leave behind? Did you ever think of me at all?

That’s stupid though, and I know it. Why would you?

You left the jet with barely more than one last throwaway comment. No goodbyes. No sign that I'd never see you again. At least, not John.

I'm not sure what I would've done if I’d known what was going to happen. I'd like to think I would've stopped you, but how? Trapped you? Frozen you? 

Gone with you?

Did I care enough about you enough to join Magneto? Turn my back on everything I'd been brought up to think and feel and believe?

I think I did.

God, I realised that a week after Alkali Lake. Lying on my bed, trying not to think about the empty one to my left, I played and replayed the scenario in my head, and yes, I went with you. Happily.

That was maybe the first time I’ve ever been scared of myself.

Unsurprisingly, we didn’t hear a thing from you, for months. Obviously you were alive; the fires on the news proved that. But there was nothing specifically from you to us; to me. No letters, no phone calls, no e-mails, nothing.

You just forgot me. The same way I tried to forget about you.

But I couldn't. One of the things I loved about you was how you always made an impression, so everyone remembered you.

I started drifting away from Rogue, and while some people had their own theories, in tend, I think it was always you. I left you to be with her, but once you'd left, I didn't feel the same way anymore. I just felt trapped, like I'd had a choice and made the wrong decision.

When she disappeared, it was more guilt than love that made me follow her. Not that I didn’t – don’t – care about her, but really, we were always friends playing at something more. I mean, if I had really loved her, wouldn't I have done more? Kept looking for her; searched inside; done anything except stand there on the opposite side of the road.

Where I saw you.

You looked so different: different hair, different clothes, different attitude. You didn't even have your lighter anymore. No John, just Pyro. You'd found your place, and it wasn't with me.

For a moment, I just wanted to hit you, to try to shake some sense into you. To see if I could hurt you too.

Then you started taunting me. Acting as if I cared about Rogue, now that I'd found you again. Did you really believe that, compared to her, you were nothing? Even as you made it clear where your loyalties lay, I still wanted things to be the way they were, before everything started changing.

I had to walk away; had to keep up a mask, a lie. Because I couldn't show how I felt, not anymore. You didn't care. If I said anything, gave anything away, you'd just use it against me. So I had to hide what I was thinking, had to get away, even as I heard the building go up in flames behind me.

After that, things just kept getting worse. The Phoenix; the cure weapons; Alcatraz. 

I'm not exactly sure why I came here with the X-Men. I had to be convinced, I know that much. But did I really agree with what Wolverine said to me, or did I just want to see you again?

I hope it was more than that. Even I think I sound pathetic. Thank God you can’t really hear this.

Even by X-Men standards, we’re outnumbered. Six of us against hundreds, hoping the soldiers wouldn’t shoot us in the backs.

It's obvious Magneto's a strategist, obvious he's been planning every last detail, sending out waves and checking our defences. The same way it's obvious you're enjoying yourself.

It was strange, when I finally saw you in action. Shooting bursts of flames, igniting cars and watching the island burn… You'd think I would've felt something. I should've felt anger, or disappointment, like the rest of them.

But I didn't.

I didn't even feel what I was actually expecting. There was no sense of amazement, or wonder. I wasn't impressed.

I didn't feel _anything_.

Do you understand, John? Pyro? There was nothing where there should've been something. There still isn't.

When did that happen? When did I stop feeling? Even looking back, I can't see. The same way, for all I try, I can never see that one point where you started changing.

_"Think you can take out your old friend?"_

That was such an odd way of saying it. He was asking me to beat you; from the way he had been fighting, he might have wanted me to kill you.

So why remind me of what we used to be? 

All the same, walking out towards you… It felt right. It felt like this was what I was supposed to be doing. In a way, what I should have done a while ago. In the end, it was always about us.

I wasn't surprised when you came alone. It all felt so natural, it would've been stranger if you hadn't. If you'd refused to fight me. 

It's where we've been headed this whole time. I just couldn't see it until now.

That's how we got here: because there was no other way. There was no real choice. There was no alternative, in the end. However else I might have wanted it.

Why?

Because I think we need each other. As friends, as rivals, as whatever I wanted us to be. We're still drawn together. You melt me and I freeze you.

In so many ways… We complete each other.

I used to wonder about the chances. About the sheer coincidence that the two of us, with the exact opposite powers, just happened to meet, and at the same age. Sometimes it seems a little bit too neat.

I don’t believe in fate, not really. 

But I could.

So here we are. Two old friends, now trying to kill each other. Or you are, anyway. Am I? Probably not.

At first, I hold back. I don’t want to hurt you – not badly, at least. Apparently you’ve no such doubts though. You’re just ploughing straight in.

That’s leftover from John, I know that. It's bizarre, seeing something so familiar where everything else has changed.

I'm trying, I am, I’m pushing harder, but it isn't having much effect, if any at all. Your fire just pushes back at me, unrelenting.

For a moment, my ice works. You’re pushed back, just a small amount. Is this it? Are we equally matched?

No.

That one second of defiance seems to break any restraints you had before. Your blaze surges back, melting my ice even as I try to form it, reaching out towards my face until it’s everything I can possibly think of.

The heat's intense. What little ice I can still manage has to be used to protect me now: a pitifully small gasp in the face of an inferno.

You're walking towards me. I can barely hear anything over the sound of flames, but I can faintly make you out through the melting ice and heat haze.

You're smiling.

You're _enjoying_ this.

You _want_ to see me burn. Or melt, whichever I'll do. I'll find out soon.

Funny. I've wondered so many times about how I'll die. We used to discuss it, remember? Me and John. The girls used to complain that we were being too morbid. We'd just laugh. I always found easy to laugh around you.

I can't remember the last time I laughed.

We invented such outrageous ways to die, because back then death was a joke to us. Paper-cuts, cheese-graters… All so stupid and meaningless in the end.

We could be serious as well. Maybe we'd be shot by the police. Trapped with a bomb. Have our throats cut. Drowned. Ambushed. Strangled.

We talked about it so much, came up with so many ideas, laughed ourselves hoarse and spoke with deadly seriousness, and in all that time…

In all that time, I never once thought _you_ would kill me.

Or that you would almost be laughing when you did.

With each step you take, the heat intensifies. It's something physical now, driving me back, forcing me to my knees, beating me down into the ground.

I can see you standing over me. You've won. You've beaten me.

But you're not letting up.

The flames are surrounding me, burning me. Winning clearly isn't enough for you. You have to go all the way. Just like John.

With every moment that passes, I can see more and more of John's traits and habits in you, Pyro. Are you two really as separate as I'd thought? Maybe you haven't changed so much, after all. Whoever you are.

Maybe I never knew you at all.

Forget anything about defence or shields. I'm turning my ice inside now. Trying to stop myself burning inside.

Although it would almost be worth it, just to feel something again.

Fire takes up all of my vision now. You're only there as a vague shape behind it; a strange, sinister silhouette. But I know you're still having fun.

Maybe this is Hell already. What did I die of? The flames around me, or the ice burrowing deeper and deeper inside myself, even as it spreads throughout my body, on every possible level?

I don't feel anything for Rogue.

You don't care about me at all.

You probably never did.

I’m freezing, frozen, nothing but ice, and _I don’t care anymore._

I just let it happen.

We never had any choice at all.


End file.
